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UO gives incoming president big raise

Michael Schill’s salary is the ninth-highest among 220 public universities

By Diane Dietz

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Monday, June 8, 2015, page A1

Dr. Edward Ray

Michael Schill

Incoming University of Oregon President Michael Schill negotiated a sweet deal from the UO Board of Trustees.

His pay and benefits will be the ninth-highest of the 220 top public universities, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education annual report released Sunday.

Trustees, during the presidential search, said they were willing to pay more to get a go-getter with talent, skill and judgment.

Schill’s compensation at $798,400 annually — when he starts on July 1 — is roughly 50 percent higher than his predecessor Michael Gottfredson, who resigned abruptly in August.

The UO’s new president has to remain on the job for the full five years of his contract to get the total compensation, because some of it is in the form of retention bonuses.

Schill is a longtime law dean at prestigious universities — UCLA and University of Chicago — although he’s never been a university president.

By contrast, Ed Ray has been president at Oregon State University for a dozen years, and his annual compensation at $558,739 is about 30 percent lower. Ray was provost at Ohio State University for a half dozen years previously.

Schill’s pay and perks outstrip those who preside over Oregon private schools, Reed College, Willamette University and Lewis & Clark College, according to Chronicle figures from 2012.

Schill’s contract offers several perks not enjoyed by other presidents.

Both Ray and Schill hold indefinite tenure as faculty on the respective campuses. Should they step down, they’re each guaranteed a spot. Ray’s pay would be up for negotiation; Schill’s pay would be $450,000 annually, their respective contracts say.

If the board fires Schill without cause, he won’t get quite the golden handshake as his predecessor got. Gottfredson got a $940,000 donor-paid sendoff when he left.

Shill’s contract would provide a year’s base salary of $660,000, but that amount would be reduced if he took another job. Ray, on the other hand, would get $298,381, and that would be reduced if he got another job.

To members of the UO Board, nearly $800,000 may not seem like a whopping sum of money to pay a president.

Several trustees are wealthy enough that they’ve already given the university $5 million, $10 million or $50 million.

When they visit campus, they sit in buildings named after themselves.

Schill’s job skills must include the ability to relate to donors, because he will be responsible for the UO’s ongoing $2 billion fundraising campaign.

On the other hand, Schill’s compensation is five times that earned by University of Oregon faculty members, who have annual pay and benefits averaging $150,000.

The faculty union, United Academics, and the classified staff union, Service Employees International Union, are in the thick of bargaining their contracts this month.